CHAPTER VII
AFTER a great deal of nervous politeness on both sides the question of terms was approached, shied away from, reapproached, argued, counter-argued, and finally reduced to a provisional agreement.
The Mertons, who were very comfortable at the Priory and very grateful to the Warings for having them, felt that nothing they could pay would represent the kindness they were receiving. This position put before them an alternative of nothing at all, or about a hundred pounds a month. As neither of these sums (if you can call nothing a sum) came anywhere within the region of practical finance, the whole matter had to be reconsidered. Lydia, studying the back page of The Times, saw that delightful homes with h. and c., near bus route, cinema, and shopping centre, with use of kitchen and bathroom, vegetables, eggs, golf, fishing, bridge, refined and cultured or bright and cheery society, could be had for anything from three and a half to twelve guineas a week. Against this must be put the facts that she and Noel did not want buses (much preferring the train), cinemas, shopping centres, golf, fishing or bridge; that they did not feel particularly refined or cultured and certainly not bright or cheery, and though they did want to have a bath would have thought twice before meddling in the kitchen. Inquiries among friends of Lydia’s who were being or having paying guests were of little more help, as there was always some special factor, such as living in a very large decaying house in a hollow five miles from the lodge gates with no servants, bad and irregular meals, lots of drink and an aerodrome in the grounds, which made the rent outrageously high, or living as one of the family in a very small villa in a dormitory town with excellent but huggermugger meals and any amount of talk about the neighbours, which made the rent ridiculously low.
The Warings, who had never taken paying guests before, were equally at a loss. When Sir Harry had said often enough that no guest under his roof should ever pay a penny, not to speak of all the work Mrs. Merton did in the garden and the stables, and what was hospitality coming to, his wife, who had always been paymaster and done the accounts, pointed out that their overdraft was not getting any smaller and it would not be fair to Cecil to miss any chance of improving the financial situation even by a few pounds. This Sir Harry poohpoohed, but when Lady Waring suggested that Major Merton might feel hurt if asked to accept what would really be charity, and that if Sir Harry did not like to take money from a guest he could always put it into National Savings, her husband was so overcome by this point of view and, we may add, this very fallacious reasoning, that he gave in, on the condition that he should not be bothered about it.
Having got so far, Lady Waring, with affectionate vengefulness, thought it was high time her husband took some responsibility for his own household, so choosing an evening when Lydia was in bed stifling a cold she caught on the wet, bitter morning when she was seeing Colin off, and she and Leslie were going to a Mothers’ Union meeting in the village, she told Sir Harry he must discuss the matter with Major Merton after dinner.
Accordingly Noel and Sir Harry dined together very comfortably. Sir Harry, whose conscience was smiting him with a two-edged sword, in one direction for finding it almost impossible to bring himself to the scratch, in the other for neglecting his wife’s express wishes, was at first not quite at his ease, but as dinner went on accompanied by a very interesting discussion about a possible successor to the Bishop of Barchester (not that there was, alas, any immediate probability of the present Bishop’s resignation) he recovered his spirits, and by the time they had drunk their coffee in the sitting-room he had quite forgotten about the unpleasant subject.
“You remember, sir,” said Noel presently, “Northbridge Manor where my wife’s people used to live? The insurance people who took it after the air-raids on London are going back. They want to keep part of the house in case of further emergencies, but my brother-in-law to whom it now belongs tells me they did it all up very nicely, so we might be able to live in part of it later on if we came to an agreement with him. Lydia is devoted to the place.”
“Quite a nice little place,” said Sir Harry, not condescendingly or belittlingly, but simply from his mansion and his several thousand acres. “I hope that’s not likely to happen just yet, though. We don’t want to lose you and your charming wife.”
“It’s extremely nice of you to say so, sir,” said Noel, “and we can’t be grateful enough for all your kindness to us. But that brings me to a point that I ought to have spoken about before: what terms you will accept for Lydia and me. I am ashamed to think of the length of time we have been here without arranging our affairs. Had you any sum in your mind, roughly, sir?”
Sir Harry was a soldier. That is, he was ready to fight to the death when necessary, but saw no necessity to seek the bubble reputation in his lodger’s mouth.
“Oh, well, Merton,” he said. “Time enough to discuss that. Let sleeping dogs lie, you know, and all that. It’s a pleasure to us to have you, so let’s leave it at that. Any news in the camp this evening?”
“Nothing particular,” said Noel. “We’ve got a new man, a Major Spender, but he has only come for a short time on a special job. But seriously, sir, we can’t go on consuming your food and drink indefinitely without paying our share.”
“As for drink,” said Sir Harry, “except for a bottle of sherry the night Winter came to dinner and your wife’s brother, I don’t think there’s been any, apart from beer of course. No, no, I couldn’t dream of it.”
“We were thinking of suggesting twelve guineas a week, sir,” said Noel.
“Good God, no!” said Sir Harry, and was stricken dumb, thus leaving Noel uncertain as to whether his host thought it too much for one person, or too little for two; or perhaps barely enough for one and ridiculous for two. “Besides, I’m rather busy this evening. Got some letters to write about the Roads Committee of the County Council. We’ll talk about it another time, my boy.”
So saying he got up nervously and went into the dining-room, where he had a large bureau for his many letters and papers. Noel felt almost snubbed. Two things, however, reassured him—one that he had done what in honour he simply must do; the other that Sir Harry had called him “my boy.” This he had not done before and Noel valued it, for he had become very fond of his host.
So after looking at the paper he wrote a few letters and went up to bed, for everyone kept fairly early hours, leading as they did very busy lives.
Here he found his wife Lydia sitting up in bed, her head tied up in a large silk handkerchief, reading Gibbon.
“How’s your cold, darling?” he said.
“Rotten,” said Lydia. “I say this is an awfully good book. I mean he puts things the way you’d like to yourself if you knew how. It’s what I call an educated book.”
Noel said it was on the whole very well thought of.
“You’re nice and early,” said Lydia.
“The fact is,” said Noel, “that I tried to make Sir Harry talk about what we should pay him and it frightened him so much that he went away.”
“What did you say?” asked Lydia.
“I suggested twelve guineas a week, and all he said was, ‘Good God!’” said Noel. “Which was a good sentiment, but not exactly helpful. Then he fled the country and went to write letters, so there we are, exactly where we were. I think, my love, it is your turn now.”
“All right,” said Lydia agreeably, if indistinctly. “I did try to talk to Lady Waring about it once, but this time I won’t let her go till it’s settled. I’m beginning to feel like a Mixo-Lydian refugee, living on other people.”
“What is this revolting smell?” asked Noel, picking his pyjamas up.
“Eucalyptus,” said Lydia. “I thought as I’ve got a cold I’d better put a lot on your bed and then you wouldn’t catch it.”
“All I hope is that you will be quite well by to-morrow,” said Noel. “Not that I wish you any ill, but I’d like you to get the full blast of this stinking stuff.”
Lydia made no answer and stared straight in fro
nt of her.
“Anything wrong?” he said, for his Lydia never took offence and he feared she might be feeling really ill.
“No,” said Lydia, coming back to consciousness. “It was only Gibbon. It made me think of the summer Tony Morland and his friends came to Northbridge and Hacker had a chameleon he called Gibbon. Do you remember?”
“Someone told me,” said Noel, “that Hacker was in the Ministry of Information. I wonder if he has his chameleon with him, and what colour it’s turned.”
“Flags of all nations, I should think,” said Lydia, and relapsed into the Decline and Fall.
Next day, whether owing to the eucalyptus, or to Noel’s curse, or because it would have been better any way, Lydia’s cold was much abated. She came down before lunch and finding Lady Waring at leisure decided to have the matter out.
“I do think, Lady Waring, that it is quite time we settled what the rent is,” said Lydia, who saw no reason to beat about the bush in a matter which was useful to both parties. “Noel and I were thinking of twelve guineas a week if that’s all right.”
“I told Harry he must speak to your husband about it last night,” said Lady Waring, “but I gather that he didn’t; so you and I had better talk it over now, Mrs. Merton. As a matter of fact, the sum Harry and I thought of on the one occasion when I got him to consider the matter was eight guineas. I mean for the two of you, of course.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Lydia, “but I honestly don’t think it’s enough. We are so very happy here.”
Lady Waring said she was very glad to hear it, as she and her husband enjoyed having Major and Mrs. Merton with them, not to speak of the young companionship for Leslie, and as they could only offer them simple food and no drink to speak of, twelve guineas would be an unreasonably large figure to ask.
“Let’s split the difference then and call it ten,” said Lydia.
“Ten guineas a week would suit us excellently,” said Lady Waring. “It is really so much easier to settle things oneself. Men talk so much that they get nothing done.”
“Or else they are afraid to talk about it at all, like Sir Harry and Noel last night,” said Lydia.
Lady Waring smiled and said she was glad it was comfortably settled.
“And now, Mrs. Merton,” she said, “as we hope to have you here for some time, I am going to ask if you will let me call you Lydia. It is such a charming name and it suits you.”
Lydia blushed with pleasure and as she afterwards said to Noel, was so glad that Lady Waring did not go on by asking her to call her Harriet, for it would have made her very uncomfortable. But no such thought had come into Lady Waring’s head, for to her Christian names were not things to be thrown about lightly and she was capable of feeling just as much affection for people without dashing into informal modes of address. It had not slipped Lydia’s notice either that Lady Waring, for the first time since they had lived under the same roof, had spoken of her husband as Harry, instead of by a more formal title. All which Lydia, very rightly, took as proof of confidence and was correspondingly pleased.
“We are both grateful to you,” said Lady Waring, “for your goodness to Leslie. The work your husband has been kind enough to find for her has really taken her out of herself; so have her drives and walks with you. It is so good for her to have young companionship. I am too old and a very busy woman.”
Lydia said, with truth, that they liked Leslie very much.
“Well, that is all very satisfactory,” said Lady Waring, kindly, yet with her slightly aloof manner as of one who was for ever the chairman of some committee or another. “And I hope Major Merton will not be moved for a long time to come.”
“So do I,” said Lydia, “only——”
“Only?” said Lady Waring.
“Well, I’ve got to do something,” said Lydia.
“Do something?” said her hostess. “But you are. I really can’t think how Harry would get on without you. Don’t talk nonsense, my dear.”
“Yes, but,” said Lydia, frowning as she tried to formulate her ideas, “it’s not real work. You see, I’m twenty-four and I haven’t got any children and I’ll be put into something if I don’t do something. I suppose I really ought to be in a factory in the north of England, but while Noel is in England I don’t think either of us could bear it, which is very unpatriotic but we can’t help it.”
Lady Waring’s face assumed an expression of faint disgust.
“A factory, my dear?” she said. “Quite unsuitable. Why not the Land Army? You are excellent in the garden and on the farm and then you can go on living here just the same.”
“But I mayn’t,” said Lydia.
Lady Waring looked incredulously at her. Then a light dawned. Of course the child was going to have a baby. Land work would be entirely unsuitable, or indeed any work at all. She must stay here and go to the excellent cottage hospital later, and so quickly did Lady Waring’s mind run ahead that she had already turned Selina, whom she didn’t really need though it was a delightful luxury to have her, into a nurse and arranged for Nannie Allen to come up to the Priory when Selina was off duty. Her further lightning decision to keep Lydia at the Priory in the event of her husband being sent abroad was rudely broken in upon by her guest.
“You see,” said Lydia, “I was on the land for a year when we were in Scotland, and I simply loved it. But that’s why I can’t be in the Land Army.”
Lady Waring was so roused from her usual calm and gentle manner as to say “What?” in an emphatic and almost a fierce voice.
“I know,” said Lydia. “That’s what everyone says. But it’s a law. If you’ve been on the land more than six months you can’t join the Land Army.”
“I must look into this,” said Lady Waring, all her years of experience in managing other people’s lives as a general’s wife and a county lady rushing energetically into the fray. “It is quite ridiculous.”
“That’s what I think,” said Lydia, “but there it is. So I think I must do Red Cross. I really am a V.A.D. as well as a land worker, and I was in a hospital in Yorkshire all the time Noel was up there, though why they call it V.A.D. when you have to do it and you get paid for it, I can’t think. It’s only since we came south again that I have been out of work. It makes one feel a bit of a traitor,” said Lydia pensively.
“I am sure Harry could find a good job for you in London,” said Lady Waring, “and you could go up with him every day.”
Lydia thanked her very much, but said a job in London wouldn’t seem like really working, and then Leslie came in to say lunch was ready, so the question dropped for the time being.
Perhaps because of the convalescent hospital there were still two posts a day at the Priory. The second post came directly after lunch and they were still in the dining-room when Selina brought the letters in. Lady Waring and Leslie always had a large second post, as the London letters were often delayed in the morning. Both were fully occupied in opening dull if fairly important letters, Lady Waring about county affairs and Leslie about the office, for Dr. Ford was now letting her do some of her work by post, when an exclamation from Lydia made them look up. She had an air of such distress that they were almost alarmed and begged to know what had happened.
“It’s a letter from Octavia Crawley,” said Lydia.
“No bad news, I hope,” said Lady Waring kindly, and with the unspoken thought that the Dean and Mrs. Crawley, with eight grown-up children, all, whether married or unmarried, serving in some way, could hardly escape some misfortune.
“Not bad for them,” said Lydia. “At least it’s bad for Octavia. You know she is engaged to Tommy Needham, who was Dr. Crawley’s secretary, and he turned into an army chaplain and was in Iceland and then he got sent to Africa, and Octavia hadn’t heard from him for ages. And now she has heard from him and he was wounded somewhere with the Free French and his arm had to come off.”
“How dreadful!” said Leslie, thinking of her brother.
But Lady Wa
ring, being a practical woman, asked which arm it was.
“Octavia doesn’t say,” said Lydia, looking at the letter again. “She only says they had to take it off and she wishes she had been there. Oh, poor Tommy. I suppose one can go on being a clergyman with only one arm, can’t one?”
Leslie said Nelson only had one arm, but of course he was an admiral.
“I think it’s worse for an admiral than for a clergyman,” said Lydia. “He’s got to do more commanding. Only being Tommy somehow makes it different. May I ring Octavia up, Lady Waring? She says she is having a few days off from the Barchester General.”
Lydia Keith would have crashed from the table, either banging the door or leaving it open. Mrs. Merton however waited for her hostess to say, “Of course, my dear, and be sure to say how distressed I am by this news, and I know Sir Harry will feel the same.”
Lydia went quickly to the telephone, noting even in the middle of her concern for Octavia that Lady Waring had reverted to Sir Harry when speaking of her husband, because, Lydia was certain, her relations with the Deanery though friendly were not intimate enough for her to speak of him as she did to Lydia. In a few moments she came back. Selina was clearing the table and Lady Waring and Leslie talking by the fire.
“Oh, Lady Waring,” Lydia said, “what do you think? Tommy’s letter took so long that he got home almost as soon, and he’s at the Deanery. Octavia hasn’t seen his arm yet—I mean where his arm was. She says he needs to have quiet and rest, and if he is at the Deanery he is sure to want to help Dr. Crawley, and his parents are dead so he really hasn’t a home except his married sister who is doing war work and has no servants, so I was wondering if there was any chance of Nannie Allen taking him. I told Octavia I’d ask.”
Growing Up Page 18